On paper, Roar seems like an idea impossible to execute in India. Given the impossibly humid conditions of filming in the barely commutable terrain of the Sundarbans. Also the fact that you would need to add the tigers and assorted beasts in later through visual effects. And also other mind-boggling set-pieces like a team chased by snakes… make that flying snakes… Yes!
The excuse for this film to unfold is this. A commando leads an armed team into the Sundarbans to kill a white tigress to avenge the death of his wild life photographer brother. And the hunters become the hunted predictably as the genre demands.
The script is pretty much generic but this still required to be staged on challenging canvas and this is where Kamal Sadanah’s Roar surprises. LA based cinematographer Michael Watson not only makes us believe that we are in the middle of the Sunderbans but also does a fairly convincing job of all the visual effects backed stunts with at least three standout action sequences – the intermission set-piece, the cheesy climax face-off (when the camera gives you X-ray vision of the tiger’s moves) and that absolutely credible sequence where they are chased by all kinds of snakes.
Which is why you wish the makers hadn’t gone to Gold’s Gym to look for acting talent. Unless they knew exactly what they wanted to make their B-movie work. Just raw meat.
Every actor, male or female, is in gym clothes (the girls, of course, in tabloid-excitable gear) and shows off his or her body in every other scene. You can see pretty much every bit of muscle. Just no acting nerve.
So it’s a ham-fest no doubt. But at least one that’s self-aware and told with a sense of urgency and real danger. And you would be impressed how the visual effects generated beasts in the film have performed with far more credible emotion than the actors in the film.
Roar is a welcome reboot for the man-versus-beast thriller B-movie in India. And bad actors come with the territory.
